US ambassador to Estonia resigns citing Donald Trump’s remarks against European governments

United States Ambassador to Estonia James D Melville resigned on Friday in protest against US President Donald Trump’s actions against America’s European allies. Melville said Trump’s behaviour with European governments – accusing them of expecting the US to shoulder the costs of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance and threatening trade tariffs – had “accelerated” his decision to retire, Foreign Policy magazine reported.

“Having served under six presidents and 11 secretaries of state, I never really thought it would reach that point [of resigning] for me,” Meville wrote in a private Facebook post according to the magazine. “For the president to say the European was ‘set up to take advantage of the United States, to attack our piggy bank,’ or that ‘NATO is as bad as the North American Free Trade Agreement’ is not only factually wrong, but proves to me that it’s time to go.”

An unidentified US State Department official confirmed that Meville had resigned, effective July 29, BBC reported. Former US President Barack Obama had appointed Meville ambassador to Estonia in 2015.

Meville’s resignation comes months after US envoy to Panama John Feeley quit in December, and then attacked Trump’s foreign policy in an article for the Washington Post.